Carlson Wagonlit Travel Selects Travelport
As Its New GDS Partner In India
Langley, UK, February 09, 2010 - Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), a global leader specialising in business travel management, and leading GDS provider, Travelport, have today confirmed that they are on track to completing a large-scale migration of all of CWT India's GDS business to the Galileo platform. The conversion from CWT India's current GDS provider to Travelport's Galileo system marks an extension of the long standing relationship between the two international organisations who already work closely together in numerous other business travel markets across the globe.
The Galileo platform was selected as the new GDS for CWT India as part of a wider, business re-engineering initiative aimed at increasing productivity through CWT's 200 points of sale across the country. As part of the switch to Galileo, a new, customised agency desktop, which streamlines the booking process by integrating mid- and back-office systems, has been built for the CWT India team. The new, highly automated booking process targets both a reduction in time spent on administration as well as an enhancement to the overall service provided to the business traveller. The state-of-the-art desktop also integrates valuable new content such as rail and insurance products provided by local Indian companies.
A leader in India's corporate travel market, with a growing portfolio of multinational and Indian blue chip companies amongst its customers, CWT India employs more than 1,000 local staff and operates a network of nine offices across eight cities. Despite generally weak market conditions last year, business travel in India held its own and the nation now ranks within the top three of CWT's largest countries by volume in the Asia Pacific region.
"This migration to Galileo in India represents another significant step in our commitment to providing best-in-class services to our clients and positions CWT well for future growth in this important business travel market. Through this migration, we are providing our local travel counselors with a superior desktop combined with new, highly relevant local content. We are also implementing a more streamlined and efficient booking process that will result in even better service," said Andrew Winterton, President, Suppliers, Products & Technology for CWT.
"We are delighted that CWT has extended its long standing relationship with Travelport and opted to migrate to the Galileo system in one of the world's fastest growing business travel markets. The success of this migration to date has been the result of strong team work by all those involved, including our distributor in India, InterGlobe Technology Quotient, as well as the Travelport and CWT teams based in the region," said Gordon Wilson, President and CEO of Travelport GDS.
"We look forward to strengthening our partnership with CWT India further still through the future roll out of new corporate travel products and solutions."
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About Carlson Wagonlit Travel
Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) is a global leader specializing in business travel management. Present in more than 150 countries, CWT serves companies of all sizes, as well as government institutions and non-governmental organizations. By leveraging both the expertise of its people and leading-edge technology, CWT helps clients derive the greatest value from their travel program in terms of savings, service, security and sustainability. The company is also committed to providing best-in-class service and assistance to travelers. CWT services and solutions comprise four lines of business: Traveler & Transaction Services, Program Optimization, Safety & Security, and Meetings & Events. In 2008, sales volume for wholly owned operations and joint ventures totaled US$27.8billion.
For more information, please visit www.carlsonwagonlit.com.
About Travelport
Travelport is a broad-based business services company and a leading provider of critical transaction processing solutions to companies operating in the global travel industry. Travelport is comprised of the global distribution system (GDS) business that includes the Worldspan and Galileo brands; GTA, a leading global, multi-channel provider of hotel and ground services; Airline IT Solutions, which hosts mission critical applications and provides business and data analysis solutions for major airlines. With 2008 revenues of $2.5 billion, Travelport operates in 160 countries and has approximately 5,300 employees.
Travelport also owns approximately 48% of Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW), a leading global online travel company. Travelport is a private company owned by The Blackstone Group, One Equity Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures and Travelport management.
For more information, please visit www.travelport.com
For media enquiries, please contact:
Kate Aldridge,
Travelport Corporate Communications
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 288720
Mobile: +44 (0) 7921 698757
Email: kate.aldridge@travelport.com